Saturday, July 12, 2014

Can a Carr beat Lamar!?

I'll give State Rep. Joe Carr(R-Lascasses) credit, he's been running rings around Lamar Alexander on social media circuits over the last few weeks in their race for US Senator from Tennessee. But can he defeat him on election day in four weeks? That is the million dollar question. I think Carr will do extremely well in a lot of the rural counties where mainly tea partiers are in control. The big questions are how well will he do in the suburban counties around Memphis, Nashville,Knoxville and those areas in East Tennessee that have a tendency to elect moderate Kent Williams types of Republicans. I think its a foregone conclusion that because of George Flinn being in this race that the Memphis/Shelby County area is a lost cause for Carr at this point. As is Nashville and Knoxville where a lot of the rich moderate republicans live who love and admire the type of republicanism that Lamar represents. So those areas are lost causes as well. But the good news for Joe Carr is that as we've seen with President Obama, you can win those areas by wide margins but still get creamed statewide in Tennessee. The good news for Carr also extends to his home area/GOP stronghold of Murfreesboro, Tn where there will be a huge turnout on election day thanks to heated races for Sheriff and Congress in that area. The questions I have though is how well will he do in Williamson County next door to Murfreesboro and how well will he do in Fayette and Madison Counties over in west Tennessee? Also how well will he play in rural east Tennessee which has a tendency to elect moderates? I think Carr will probably do reasonably well in these areas that I mentioned because the tea partiers are more motivated to vote than Lamar's grassroots supporters are. But will Carr's margins be big enough in the rural areas to offset Lamar's edge in Knoxville,Nashville and Memphis. That is the million dollar question that we'll find out the answer too on August 7.....